I’m Me at 26 Because of These 26 Beliefs
An invitation to anyone who feels something about me—good, bad, or somewhere in between.
On my 26th birthday, I hit “record” and spent two voice-memo sessions (1h 3m 58s + 43m 31s) simply speaking the first 26 lessons that surfaced from twenty-six years of living. These aren’t ranked rules but raw fragments from beliefs that make me, me—captured in the exact order they came to mind.
Treat each entry like a friend’s unfiltered reflection: pick what resonates, test it in your life, debate the rest. I encourage you to read these lessons if you find yourself drawn to me in any way—whether you like me, dislike me, or feel something in response to what I think, say, or create.
1 Only Trust Advice When the Adviser Has Skin in the Game
“I really, really, really value people who want to walk the talk.
If I could lose something by following their advice, they must be able to lose something too.”
Internet activists chasing follower counts? I have no time for them. What moves me instead are the few who “go so f***ing far now, and [might] die for something they love and are passionate about.” Before I act, I run one filter question: Will this adviser bleed if I bleed? Have they bled on their own? I keep my counsel if they risk nothing while I risk everything.
2 Daily Micro-Progress Makes Macro Success Inevitable
“Since I was 19, I’ve worked on some skill daily.
I cannot think about a single day in which I wasn’t working toward a better job, skill, or relationship—and so far, at 26, I’ve gotten everything I wanted up to this point.”
Success isn’t a lightning bolt; it’s compound interest on microscopic, boring reps. Ten focused minutes—reading a few pages, tightening one sentence, lifting a weight—extends the streak. And the streak matters more than the sprint. Break the chain even once, and inertia wins.
3 Reality Runs on Its Own Clock—Expect Serious Delays
“It always takes longer than you think.
I thought it would take me about a month to find a job…, but it took me one year to figure out the exact job type I wanted and see it.”
After leaving software, where I’d “worked with almost 50 companies” and “made millions for companies, I assumed the roles I desired would chase me. They didn’t. Twelve months of searching and refining passed before the right role surfaced. That gap between expectation and reality is why so many quit. People quit because an imaginary deadline expires. Adjust the deadline, not the dream.
4 Radical Self-Awareness Beats Performative Virtue-Signaling
“I don’t care if you are racist, lazy, or insensitive.
I only care when you don’t realize that you’re racist, insensitive, lazy, or whatever trait that may be.”
Nothing is worse than encountering someone who plays a role or “doesn’t realize that that’s who they are.” Liberal spaces preaching unconditional self-acceptance can slip into passivity: they “love the entire world, but all their friends are rich,” then hide contradictions behind feel-good slogans. Authenticity starts here: name the ugly parts, then choose—change them or own them outright.
5 Align Deeds with Creeds—Live the Values You Preach
“If you shout about ‘equality of outcomes’ yet earn the most money on the block and never share a dime, I don’t respect the belief.”
Borrow Aristotle’s unity-of-action from Greek tragedy: your life must unfold from a single through-line—belief to behavior. I’m not angered by inconsistency; I simply don’t trust it. Obsessed with authenticity (I say it weekly), I tell friends: “I don’t care if you’re racist, lazy, insensitive, or [any label]—I only care when you don’t realize that’s who you are.” Words without matching deeds—money, time, effort—ring hollow. True integrity demands that your actions trace the same arc as your creed.
6 Ground Morality in Timeless Principles, Not Passing Fads
“One should strive to live under natural law—truths tested across time, people, and cultures.
Atrocity starts when morality becomes purely relative.”
I live under a moral seriousness that balances nuance, materialism, human law, and cultural interpretation, with truths that outlast empires. When ethics float free of anchors, any atrocity can find justification: every genocide’s foot soldiers believed “their private morality” was right. Principles that survive centuries beat whatever goes viral on Tuesday.
7 Honor Proven Historical Solutions Before Reinventing Them
“Same problems, same solutions in principle. You’d better have a good reason before tossing what worked for centuries.”
Change for its own sake is chaos masquerading as progress. People ditch marriage as “patriarchal”—then find themselves in polyamorous misery. Others renounce religion—only to drift, purposeless, chasing ayahuasca highs. Tradition is unpaid R&D: centuries of trial, error, and community-stabilizing wins. Before you torch it, map the load-bearing beams and accept the trade-offs.
8 Action First: Zero Results Without Initial Experiments
“If you have a problem and haven’t tried anything, the conversation ends there.”
Paralysis is the mortal enemy of progress. Whining about obstacles won’t build solutions—only action will. Send that one-sentence email. Try the five-minute sketch. Whatever you test, however crude, you’ll learn. Data beats despair. So jump in, gather feedback, then refine—or kill—the hypothesis.
9 Every Choice Carries a Massive Opportunity Cost
“Every time you choose a job, there are millions of jobs you’re not choosing.
Every time you stay in a city, there are millions of cities you’re not visiting;
every time you stick with a friend group, there are millions of people you’re not meeting.”
Life is subtraction. Each “yes” silently spawns an army of “no’s.” So ask yourself: Am I okay with these losses? Name the paths you close, bless them, and then own your chosen road. No second-guessing, no regrets.
10 You Progress When You Say No
“If you want to be with someone for life, the only way is to say no to all the other millions of options…
In business, you solve one giant problem and ignore the rest—then move on to the next.”
Focus demands sacrifice. Lock on one constraint—ditch the crumbs on the table—and conquer it. A strategy is simply a thousand deliberate “no’s” paving the way to one inevitable “yes.”
11 Shrink Your Options to Shrink Your Stress
“Ordering food is stressful if you scan every restaurant;
watching a show is stressful if you browse every streaming service;
searching for an apartment or a partner can overload you.”
Endless choice feels like freedom—until it paralyzes you. Pick one favorite pizza joint. Commit to that seven-season series. Choose your partner. Suddenly, decisions become light, almost automatic. Clarity follows scarcity.
12 Mastery Demands Selective, Sustained Focus
“Imagine running seminars, dancing, playing piano, Muay Thai, building a business, gaming—every day.
But with endless options, you’ll never reach mastery.
Olympic gold comes from one sport, not many. Billionaires usually build one company, not ten.”
Depth outruns breadth. To hit the top 1%, you must go all in on a few pursuits—no half-assing, no multitasking. Specialization isn’t a cage; it’s the price of excellence.
13 Go All-In or Accept No Results—Your Call
“A Bukowski poem: ‘go all the way.’
If you want something, you better do it immediately—and every f***ing day.
If you don’t, you’ll either never get it or get it slower—and that’s fine if that’s what you want.”
Intensity compounds. Sparse effort yields sparse wins. Full-throttle daily action delivers real progress. Decide: do it fully, or settle for half the prize.
14 Model the Masters—Success Always Leaves Blueprints
“If someone does it better than you, they know something you don’t.
Your job: figure out what that is.
That’s why biographies—Jordan, Bryant, James—are f***ing helpful.”
“If I want my kids to be geniuses, I’ll read every genius’s life story.”
“Some charge $200, $2,000, even $20,000 an hour. I don’t yet—that’s on me.”
Success leaves footprints. Copy the playbook. Drill the drills. Whether it’s elite sports, prodigy parenting, or high-ticket consulting, the path is visible—step by step.
15 Belief Precedes Possibility—Mindset Unlocks Action
“You have to believe something is possible, even to have a chance.
The only way to make money is to think it’s possible for you.”
“If you want something in theory but aren’t acting, dig into your brain—what’s stopping you?”
“For four years, I sabotaged big paydays—tying money to loneliness.”
Mindset is the gatekeeper. Hidden beliefs—“money equals isolation”—keep doors locked. First, expose and rewrite the script. Then tactics matter. With conviction aligned, what once seemed closed flings wide open.
16 Perception Is Reality
“People saw me dancing and laughing and decided I was cocky; they treated me that way.”
Because they read my joy as arrogance, I got side-eye, smack-talk, even a shove on the floor. Their story—not my intent—wrote the verdict. If I won’t “fix that perception and match it to reality,” I pay the tax in hostility, lost invites, or outright bans. The rule scales: you can “sell the highest-quality services on earth,” yet if no one perceives value, no one buys. You might think your audience is the problem, but you sell nothing until you own their problem. Audit every public signal—posture, tone, website copy, pricing—and edit the broadcast when the outside view hurts.
17 Purpose-Aligned Work Feels Like Play, Not Labor
“Twelve-hour days exhaust me only when I’m off-mission; on-mission, they feel like a video game.”
“For the last year I’ve been working ten to fourteen hours per day…and it was some of the most joyful time of my life because that’s exactly what I wanted to do.”
Burnout struck only when I chased money for its own sake. The moment my projects synced with my mission—decreasing wealth inequalities through better schools—work became unbridled curiosity. I’d leave the dance floor at 1 a.m., race home, then eagerly crack open ad campaigns or seminar decks. Alignment flips the energy equation: fatigue collapses, fuel emerges.
18 Invest in Deep One-to-One Bonds Over Shallow Crowds
“Communities look the happiest but collapse at the first conflict; my one-on-one friendships never end.”
I’ve lived inside collectives preaching belonging yet birthing the worst behavior—sexual assault, whispers behind backs, indifference to outsiders. Surface smiles fracture at the first sign of tension. In contrast, a bond between two people, built before any banner or hashtag, lasts decades. I’ve truly lost only two or three friends, precisely because those ties were dyad-first, crowd-second. Depth scales trust; breadth dilutes it. (Fun fact: every friend I’ve lost prized “community” over one-on-one connection—and they still lose friends.)
19 Hold Strong Opinions Lightly—Practice Intellectual Humility
“The moment you think you know the ultimate truth about something, you are most dangerous to yourself and others.
It’s the risk of not knowing yourself, not following your alignment, and hurting others.
Some people simplify it as ‘strong opinions, loosely held.’”
Certainty calcifies; curiosity lubricates. I’ll read Friedman, agree with him, then Marx. For whatever belief I have, I look for the extreme opposite. Brutal honesty wrapped in flexibility: know what you stand for, avow it, but swap it when deeper data arrives. That stance is the pressure release valve that prevents dogma from blowing the roof off.
20 Books Are the Cheapest High-ROI Upgrade on Earth
“Reading might be the biggest hack on earth.
A child who reads a hundred-plus economics books in free time will annihilate almost any econ grad, regardless of institution.
It’s insane what I’ve learned for fifteen dollars.
Three weeks ago, I bought some ad books, followed their advice, and launched my first campaign in five hours.
One week late, I was making more money and spending less than the specialized agency I’d hired before.”
I replay that move in every arena. Jumping into education, I asked experts, devoured their recommended volumes, and now hold deep conversations with PhDs. Books are time machines—decades of someone else’s scars, $15 a ride. Execution is the only surcharge.
21 Consciously Chosen “Fictional” Stories Can Heal and Propel
“Sometimes it is helpful to make yourself think things that might not be true scientifically, if believing them leads to a behavior that benefits you.
When my mom passed away, I studied Asian scriptures on reincarnation.
I pictured a ‘mega-me,’ infinitely more intelligent, who chose this life, including the suffering, because it would serve some purpose it could grasp, but I couldn’t.
That belief might be false, but it let me process the pain and keep living.”
Stories are medicine: dose them knowingly; watch the relief bloom; discard the tale when its side-effects outweigh the cure. A narrative needn’t be factual to be functional. In that crucible of grief, a self-reinvented myth became the scaffold that held me up long enough to grieve, rebuild, and breathe again.
22 Value Must Be Earned—Become Worthy of What You Seek
“You might not be enough yet to date someone, make money, save people, or change the world—no one owes you anything.
Beautiful meme: ‘I want a six-foot guy in finance with blue eyes.’ Real question: If he met you, would he choose you?
Good news: you can become enough if you take the actions that someone who is enough takes daily.”
Entitlement is death to momentum; apprenticeship is its spark. Upgrade your skills, hone your health, and sharpen your empathy—day after day—until the life you covet feels like earned symmetry, not stolen grace. The gap between “not enough” and “more than enough” closes in daily reps, not manifestos.
23 Learn the Rules of Each Status Game—Then Switch Courts Fearlessly
“You’re always playing a status game.
Each social hierarchy has its own rules and its scoring system.
Example: The $250 K San Francisco engineer looks alpha sitting at a networking event until he steps onto a salsa floor.
There, the local waiter who serves tables and can follow the beat is instantly top dog… while the engineer is dead last.
‘The key upside comes from being willing to suck first—wash dishes, take crumbs—and climb.’”
Every arena demands its rulebook. Study it. Start at zero. Pay your dues. Then you unlock compounding rewards—tech paychecks, dance-floor cred, village-council clout. Willingness to reset to beginner again and again is the passport to multi-domain dominance.
24 Drop the Tyranny of “Should”—Desire Is Optional Suffering
“There’s nothing in your life that should happen.
If you’re miserable, it’s because you know what should happen in life…
You can choose not to want more things, or—if you still want them—do the things that will get you what you want.”
“Should” is a silent whip. Release it, and peace rushes in. Keep it, and you sign up for a lifetime of craving without commitment. Want the mansion or a six-pack? Either let it go and feel relief, or pay the price in sweat and strategy. The agony lies in wanting without acting.
25 Set the Tempo—Compress Decades into Days by Borrowing Time
“You can decide how fast or how slow things happen.
I owe a lot of what I’ve lived through to hanging out with people who are five to ten years older;
They saved me time by telling me what they wasted ten years learning.”
Speed is a choice. Sit with veterans, steal their hindsight, then act today. Ten-year detours collapse into weekend projects when you honor borrowed wisdom with immediate execution. Respect the gift—then sprint.
26 You Have a Moral Duty to Become Your Best Self
“You are responsible—you have a moral duty to pursue what you want and become the best version of yourself that can ever be accomplished.
Duty to biology, to all the people who lived before you, to your parents who devoted themselves, to society that exists so you can exist,
to your future kids… and to your partner who chooses you over millions of options.”
Self-actualization isn’t self-indulgence; it’s repayment owed to ancestors, family, community, and the human endeavor. Talent unspent is debt unpaid. Rise to your potential and square the ledger.
